{"id":569284,"date":"2026-02-06T00:31:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T00:31:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/569284\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T00:31:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T00:31:14","slug":"why-a-dallas-art-museum-surfaced-in-the-jeffrey-epstein-files","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/569284\/","title":{"rendered":"Why a Dallas art museum surfaced in the Jeffrey Epstein files"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Dallas art museum contacted convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in 2014, asking to borrow a painting he owned for a solo show, recently released federal records show. <\/p>\n

The painting, by American artist Richard Phillips, \u201cwould greatly contribute to the comprehensive scope and success of the exhibition,\u201d Peter Doroshenko, Dallas Contemporary\u2019s executive director, wrote then in an email addressed to Epstein. <\/p>\n

Erin Cluley, the museum\u2019s associate director of exhibitions, reiterated Doroshenko\u2019s ask in subsequent emails to Epstein and Epstein\u2019s assistant Lesley Groff. Groff later declined the request, saying Epstein wasn\u2019t interested in loaning the work. <\/p>\n

The correspondence surfaced in a trove of documents released by the Justice Department last week related to its yearslong investigation of Epstein, the disgraced financier. Epstein died by suicide in 2019, as he awaited trial on sex trafficking charges in a New York jail. <\/p>\n

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Dallas Contemporary\u2019s emails do not suggest a close relationship between the museum and Epstein nor do they make reference to any misconduct. The exchange came several years after Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting a minor for prostitution, in 2008. <\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t know who the hell he was,\u201d Doroshenko said, when reached by phone on Wednesday. Doroshenko left Dallas Contemporary in 2022 and most recently led the Ukrainian Museum in New York. He said it came as \u201ca little bit of a surprise\u201d that the emails were in the files. <\/p>\n

Epstein\u2019s personal communications have been dissected, particularly for ties to wealthy and powerful business moguls, politicians, foreign dignitaries and celebrities. The fallout for those linked to Epstein continues to reverberate nationally and globally. Two men \u2014 the chairman of a top New York-based law firm, and a department head at Manhattan\u2019s School of Visual Arts \u2014 resigned from their respective posts this week after their amicable relationships with Epstein became public. <\/p>\n

Painter and ex-museum director respond<\/p>\n

In the Wednesday phone call, Doroshenko said he received a list of Phillips\u2019 paintings and their respective collectors before the 2014 solo show. \u201cI was the administrator to send out the request for loans and obviously secure loans and a show happened. And that was it.\u201d <\/p>\n

Doroshenko knew the names of some of the collectors, but others he did not, including Epstein\u2019s. <\/p>\n

When reached by phone Thursday, Phillips said he was unaware that Epstein had owned one of his paintings. The last time he saw the work, called Below, was roughly 25 years ago at a show in Switzerland. It depicts a woman gazing down with her bare chest in view. Phillips rose to prominence in the \u201890s <\/b>for glossy, photorealistic paintings like Below that grappled with sexuality, beauty and the grotesque. <\/p>\n

For \u201cNegation of the Universe<\/a>,\u201d his exhibit at Dallas Contemporary, Phillips helped create the list of paintings that the museum tried to secure. \u201cYou go down the list and see what loans you can get,\u201d he said. In many cases, he did not know who owned the works. <\/p>\n

He called Epstein\u2019s crimes \u201cdisturbing and very obviously abhorrent.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cImagine if you had made a painting and found it was in the collection of this pedophile,\u201d Phillips said. \u201cThat\u2019s not great news.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Dallas Morning News reached out to Cluley and Dallas Contemporary for comment, but did not immediately hear back. (Cluley no longer works at the museum, having left in 2014 to open her own gallery<\/a> in Dallas.) <\/p>\n

Others with North Texas ties have been snared in the web of scrutiny around Epstein. <\/p>\n

Merrie Spaeth, a Dallas crisis communications consultant, advised Epstein on his public relations strategy amid allegations of child sexual abuse in 2008 and sent messages offering support in the years that followed. Spaeth told The News this week<\/a> she was embarrassed by her involvement. <\/p>\n

After Epstein\u2019s 50th birthday book was publicized last year, Terry Kafka, a childhood friend who wrote a letter for the book and has lived in Dallas, told The News<\/a> it was \u201chumiliating to read,\u201d but he had been instructed to write it in a raunchy way by Epstein\u2019s then-girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell<\/a>. She has been serving a 20-year sentence for being an accomplice to Epstein\u2019s sex trafficking of underage girls. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Dallas art museum contacted convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in 2014, asking to borrow a painting he…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":569285,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5135],"tags":[5229,1596,8160,80,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,5548],"class_list":{"0":"post-569284","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-dallas","10":"tag-museums","11":"tag-politics","12":"tag-texas","13":"tag-tx","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-united-states-of-america","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-usa","20":"tag-visual-arts"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116020870220022471","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=569284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569284\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/569285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=569284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=569284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=569284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}